O P I N I O N S

Guest Column
Time India woke up to US surveillance
Hardeep S Puri
The Indian establishment had been remarkably silent on the comprehensive surveillance to which India, its leaders, political parties, diplomatic representation and its economic entities have been subjected by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the US. Salman Khushid’s statement that what was being collected was only ‘metadata’ lead to the inference being drawn that there was some collaborative arrangement between New Delhi and Washington. Whilst the jury is still out on the ‘collaboration’ part of the arrangement, if any, information now available in the public domain, thanks to Edward Snowden, indicates an altogether different and more serious dimension.

Fifty Fifty
Not just agriculture, Punjabis value art too
Kishwar Desai
Having grown up with the oft-repeated phrase that the only culture Punjabis possess is agriculture — like many other Punjabis I seek out the contradictions, looking for those examples that will prove we have been deeply involved in the propagation and preservation of art and culture. Fortunately, there are many instances and less difficult to find than can be imagined. And thus, for many like me it was a thrill to attend the exhibition, “A Passionate Eye”, at the National Museum in Delhi, which essentially showcases the collections of a remarkable Punjabi father and son duo, Radha Krishna and Chotey Lal Bharany.

ground zero
Need to put the mojo back into Indo-US relations
Raj Chengappa
If US Secretary of State John Kerry hoped that his ‘kiss and make up’ trip last week would re-engage and re-energise Indo-US relations he must have gone back feeling a trifle jilted. Not that Kerry should have expected anything better. For more than a decade, the US had treated Narendra Modi as an outcast, refusing to give him a visa after the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. Only when it was apparent that Modi would become the next Prime Minister did the US begin to woo him in earnest.

Guest Column
Time India woke up to US surveillance
Hardeep S Puri

The Indian establishment had been remarkably silent on the comprehensive surveillance to which India, its leaders, political parties, diplomatic representation and its economic entities have been subjected by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the US. Salman Khushid’s statement that what was being collected was only ‘metadata’ lead to the inference being drawn that there was some collaborative arrangement between New Delhi and Washington. Whilst the jury is still out on the ‘collaboration’ part of the arrangement, if any, information now available in the public domain, thanks to Edward Snowden, indicates an altogether different and more serious dimension.

Visiting Secretary of State John Kerry was told by Sushma Swaraj on July 31 during the US-India Strategic Dialogue that India had been outraged and that such snooping was unacceptable. Some of the implications of such surveillance for our national security need to be understood.

Within a few weeks of India being elected to the UN Security Council, on 22 December 2010, as India’s PR to the UN, I addressed a communication to the then Foreign Secretary requesting both preventive and countermeasures in the more important offices and conference facilities urgently for protection of in-house discussions/meetings and for the security of our communications. There was not even an acknowledgment of the request made, let alone any action on this written communication carrying the highest classification.

The Snowden revelations and the ‘top secret’ documents released by him have now been collated by Glen Greenwald in his recently released book ‘No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US, Surveillance State’.

A top secret document of August 2010 has the following:

“In late spring 2010, eleven branches across five Product Lines teamed with NSA enablers to provide the most current and accurate information to USUN (United States Mission to the United Nations) and other customers on how UNSC members would vote on the Iran Sanctions Resolution.… SIGINT was key in keeping USUN informed of how the other members of the UNSC would vote.

“…according to USUN, SIGINT ‘helped me to know when the other Permreps [Permanent Representatives] were telling the truth… revealed their real position on sanctions… gave us an upper hand in negotiations… and provided information on various countries’ “red lines”’.”

Page 146 lists seven programmes, as then being operational against India, four against the Indian Permanent Mission to the UN in New York and three against the Indian Embassy in Washington.

The explanatory notes make interesting reading. The operations against India/UN are codenamed NASHUA, the ones against the Embassy in Washington, OSAGE. More importantly, the following programmes described as ‘Mission’ were being used against Indian establishments in the US: HIGHLANDS (collection from implants), VAGRANT (collection of computer screens), MAGNETIC (sensor collection of magnetic emanations), LIFESAVER (imaging of the hard drive).

Now that the External Affairs Minister has termed the surveillance ‘unacceptable’, it stands to reason that we should ask for a response on whether these programmes are still operative or have been withdrawn and/or whether new surveillance programmes have been introduced.

The collaborative arrangements between the multinational Internet and telecom majors and the NSA of the US should concern us even more.

AT&T has partnered the NSA since 1985. US court records in the class action suit Hepting Vs. NSA are revealing. (Details at https://www.eff.org/cases/hepting). Page 102 of a “top secret” slide presentation of the NSA shows AT&T as one of the “80 major global corporations” supporting its missions. Page 103 shows the NSA has a ‘Special Source Operation’ which has a list of three major corporates giving it access to various kinds of telecommunication facilities.

One of the corporates which is part of the “Special Source Operations” has been given the code name “Fairview.” The official document describes FAIRVIEW as a “Corporate partner since 1985 with access to international cables, routers, switches. The partner operates in the US, but has access to information that transits the nation and through its corporate relationships to provide unique access to other telecoms and Internet Service Providers. Aggressively involved in shaping traffic to run signals of interest past our monitors.” (Page 105)

Now, a fit case for ‘Ripley’s Believe it or Not’. Whilst AT&T is an established collaborator and contractor for the NSA, its India representative for 20 years has managed to join the permanent Joint Committee on International Cooperation and Advocacy (JCICA) under the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS). This has been facilitated by an apex Chamber of Commerce.

Protestations that a person associated with AT&T for over 20 years cannot be part of such a sensitive committee have had no effect. He is a member of the committee set up to author the guidelines for the protection of the National Critical Information Infrastructure which will be manned by the NTRO.

I have tried in my own limited way to draw attention to the security implications of some of these issues since I left government in 2013. Snowden’s leaked documents published by Greenwald will hopefully drive home the seriousness of the issues involved. Perhaps we will soon be able to make a determination on whether we were collaborating with or are victims of such surveillance.

(The author, a retired diplomat, was India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva and later New York. The views expressed are personal)

Fifty Fifty
Not just agriculture, Punjabis value art too
Kishwar Desai

Having grown up with the oft-repeated phrase that the only culture Punjabis possess is agriculture — like many other Punjabis I seek out the contradictions, looking for those examples that will prove we have been deeply involved in the propagation and preservation of art and culture. Fortunately, there are many instances and less difficult to find than can be imagined. And thus, for many like me it was a thrill to attend the exhibition, “A Passionate Eye”, at the National Museum in Delhi, which essentially showcases the collections of a remarkable Punjabi father and son duo, Radha Krishna and Chotey Lal Bharany.

The Bharanys belong to Amritsar, and it is here that Radha Krishna (1877-1942) possibly began his seeking out of extraordinary art, an obsession that only grew as he relocated to Kolkata and then later to Delhi. Even now his descendants have an outlet in Delhi’s Sundar Nagar market. But honestly, had one not gone for this exhibition, there would be little awareness that behind the commercial facades of the Sundar Nagar shops could lie stories of such elegant acquisition.

Of course, at the time that Radha Krishna began his collection, there was little awareness of Indian treasures lying uncared for and unappreciated. It is said sellers would arrive at the Bharany doorstep carrying sackful or armloads of precious items. Fortunately, thanks to avid collectors such as AK Coomaraswamy and Karl Khandalawala who bought from them, the Bharanys were able to carry on purchasing art — which ranged from paintings to sculpture to shawls and carpets. Much of these were to eventually form the base of museums abroad, such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. And it is interesting to see how the collection moved from one aficionado to the other, constantly admired and appreciated, and rising in financial value.

For instance, as an art scholar, Pratapaditya Pal, has pointed out, in 2008 at an auction in New York, a Pahari painting by the famous artist Nainsukh was sold for a record-breaking $2 million, far above the reserve. This particular painting belonged to Sir Dorabji Tata, and in all probability, along with others owned by Sir Dorabji, had once been the proud possession of Radha Krishna Bharany.

The fascinating part is that many of the paintings were bought at astonishingly meagre prices at the turn of the century or even later. For instance, Coomaraswamy paid a grand sum of around Rs 4,000-5,000 for several paintings he had bought over a period of seven years. From the Bharanys own notes it has emerged that each of the paintings were sold for anything between Rs 5 and Rs 30. The other amusing discrepancy (compared to contemporary attitudes) is that carpets had a higher price than art, at the time!

Despite the rising value of art in India, it must be appreciated that many collectors also showed a spirit of philanthropy, and the Bharanys were at the forefront of this. In the 1970s, Chotey Lal Bharany donated a range of extremely valuable items which included sculptures, coins, paintings and textiles to the National Museum in Delhi. It is from amongst these 'hundreds' of items that the present exhibition had been created. The only criticism is that while the presentation of the exhibits is excellent, there is a surprising lack of information on each object. Apart from stating the obvious, such as 'shawl', there was little to indicate the provenance of each object or even give us more information about the style and its context. With a collection as eclectic as this, it might have been better to take us through the historicity of each piece or put up different exhibitions on just the textiles or the paintings. Like with everything else at the National Museum, unfortunately, you are merely a viewer and not a participant in the exhibition.

Walking around the displays, you can almost imagine Radha Krishna Bharany wanting to whisper some more information into your ear. But, nonetheless, we are fortunate that we even have these pieces with us today, thanks to the generosity of Chotey Lal Bharany. Especially since, as is well known, much of India's art has found its home abroad, both in private and public collections. Some of this transfer happened much before the 1972 antiquities Act, and some, rather more surreptitiously, in the latter years. While this led to the growth of some of the best collections in foreign museums, it also led to an ever escalating increase of interest and scholarship, which, over a period of time, changed Indian sensibilities, waking us up to the need for us to study and preserve our own art.

The Bharanys were at the centre, thus, of a great movement. And the best part was it was a Punjabi enterprise!